Chapter 41 #2
“I thought if you believed I was an enemy, you’d fight me in the trials, and I could control the outcome better if you were trying to win,” Nico says. “But you kept not believing me.”
“What about at the house?”
In the library, after I found out about Billy, when he described all those murders in graphic detail and said he’d imagined doing it to me? No Game Master was watching then.
“I was scared of what I’d do around you,” he says. “I thought if you believed I was dangerous, you’d leave. It was stupid to think you’d be safer, with Morrow out there.”
I almost laugh at the irony, since Morrow got me anyway. Nico shakes his head, and I wonder if he’s having the same thought as I am.
I pull out another piece of glass. Blood wells up in its place.
“Why didn’t you believe me?” Nico asks. “You kept helping me.”
I lift one shoulder, focusing on his foot instead of his face because I don’t want to overwhelm him and make him stop talking. “I thought Morrow flipped your switch, but I was hoping you were still in there.”
He recoils in confusion, as if I told him a bouillon cube turns into a steak when dropped into boiling water. “You have the survival instincts of a goldfish.”
“Only around you.” I pull another shard. “I’m lucky you aren’t that girl from Nemo with the braces yelling FISHY! WAKE UP!”
He drops his gaze to his lap, and the strip of his smile is so white against the shadows that it almost glows in the dark.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I ask, keeping my voice low. I don’t know if I’m asking about the house, or Billy, or his plan to help me through the trials.
Nico pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, and I know before he goes quiet that he’s not going to answer.
I focus on pulling the big shard. The squelching sound makes me curse, and Nico slams his head back against the wall with a grunt as more blood runs out.
“I’m sorry,” he grits out. “For saying those things to you. I didn’t mean them.”
“I’m sorry for doubting you,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I gave you every reason to.”
I finish wrapping his other foot and tap his ankle, letting him know I’m done. “This should be enough to get you to the lightbulb,” I say. “I’m going to need it to see if there’s anything else in there.”
His leg slides out from between mine, and he draws his foot back toward himself as he tips his chin at me. “Your turn,” he says.
Can he even grip anything with his hands? Before the trial, he couldn’t grip a bottle cap or untie his shoes.
But he has that determined look in his eyes that tells me if this argument were a trial, I’d be the one left on the pole, so I let him guide me until I’m leaning against the column.
By some stroke of luck, I avoided smashing my face into any huge shards. Most of the pieces that ended up in my cheek and jaw are small, and the wounds are shallow enough that Nico can use his sleeve to coax them out.
The ones that won’t go as easily are so small that Nico can’t grip them in his state. He has to guide my fingers to each shard. I can’t bring myself to ease them out slowly, but every time I try to yank one out fast, my fingers slip.
Nico hooks his wrists around my raised forearm. “Grip it tight.”
I pinch as hard as I dare. There’s no point in taking it out if it’s going to end up in my thumb.
Nico wrenches my arm so fast I have no time to yelp. Blood drips onto his hands. It’s out.
We do that four more times.
He picks up one of the T-shirt strips and holds it out to me, nodding at my cheek. “Put this on your face.”
I press the cloth to my cheek where I can feel the sting, all the tension draining out of me like my body finally believes it can stop fighting for five seconds because someone else is handling it.
Nico examines the big shard still jutting from my kneecap. He forces his hand to close around the bottleneck that is now angled sideways from me crawling on it, and he grimaces as he pulls it out with one hard tug.
A searing pain knifes through my leg. I whimper, clutching my calf.
“I know,” he says, wrapping a strip of my T-shirt tight around my knee. “I’m sorry.”
It’s strange watching his tattooed fingers fighting him while he works.
I’m not going to act like a baby after he showed about as much pain as someone with a couple of frustratingly deep and stubborn splinters.
I focus on his face. It’s easier to look at him now that he’s not looking at me.
My eyes roam around the line of concentration marking his forehead, the dimple in his chin, the tender curve of his mouth, and the wide bend of his Cupid’s bow.
Nico rips off another strip of bandage with his teeth and ties it off sluggishly. “What’s your favorite color?”
The randomness of the question gives me pause. “What?”
“Your favorite color.” He pulls another shard of glass from my heel, and I have to swallow back a yelp. “Tell me.”
“Yellow,” I manage.
“Why?” He moves to the next piece of glass, but it slips through his swollen fingers. On the third try, he makes this frustrated sound and stops for a few seconds to rub his fingers against his leg.
“Sunflowers,” I say.
He gets a grip on the glass and pulls it out, and I talk faster to keep from focusing on it. “I like how they always turn their faces to look at the sun. They don’t just accept being in the shade.”
“Sounds about right,” he says.
“Huh?”
“You,” he says. “You turn toward the sun even when everything’s trying to drag you into the shade.”
If he knew anything about me, he wouldn’t be saying that. I’m a pro at wallowing in shade. But thinking he sees me like that, so differently than how I see myself, warms my face.
“You make me one, too,” Nico says.
“What?”
“You enter the room, and everything inside me wants to turn toward you,” he says.
I’m sure I’m blushing, and I hope it’s too dark in here for him to notice. The feeling blooming in my chest is too big for my ribcage, so I try my best to deflect: “I thought you said you feel nothing.”
“I didn’t for so long.” He pulls out another shard, gentle this time, like he’s terrified of hurting me more than necessary. “Then you joined the team.”
The confession hangs between us.
“And made you feel so much annoyance?” I ask.
“Among other things,” he says. “Exhaustion. Rage.”
I know he’s kidding, but I can feel the words building in the air, like we’re circling something neither of us is saying.
He pulls another shard from my heel, and a piercing jolt lances up my leg so fast I see stars. This one goes deeper than the others, and I can feel the exact moment the glass leaves my flesh.
Pain is information.
“You’re done,” he murmurs, applying pressure to staunch the blood.
I train my mind on the pressure instead of on the pain as he wraps the remaining strips of my T-shirt around my feet.
He ties off each bandage and looks up at me through the dark strands of hair falling across his forehead.
In the red lighting, his eyes almost sparkle. “So, walk or scoot?”
I want to say walk. I want to be tough and capable and not a burden, but the adrenaline that’s been keeping me upright is starting to fade, and exhaustion crashes over me.
“Can we sit here for a second?” I ask. “Please?”
The speakers have been silent since the Game Master told us to move. He can’t have been possessing that cop’s body for long. There’s no way he can keep control long enough to watch us 24/7. Sitting here for a few seconds more feels safe.
Nico tilts his head, then slides his hand up my shin until it rests right below my uninjured knee, scooting closer to me.
His fingers have stopped that trembling from before.
His circulation must be coming back. The place where his leg pushes against mine feels impossibly warm compared to everything else.
“You asked me once about my tattoos,” he says. “Do you want me to tell you about them?”
I nod, grateful for the distraction.
He tugs his sleeve halfway up his forearm, angling so I can see the tattooed bones and the hard lines of muscle visible under his shaded skin. His veins bulge against his forearms. Part of me thinks maybe it’s weird to find veins this hot, but sue me. They are.
“I did this one because I wanted to understand what things look like underneath,” he says. “I needed the reminder that I’m only barely alive. That it wouldn’t take much for what’s under there to be exposed.”
I let out a weak laugh. “That’s morbid.”
“Welcome to my head.”
“I’m not one to judge.”
He unzips his leather jacket, pulls off his own layers, until he begins unzipping his jumpsuit, exposing his bare chest.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I thought we were doing a thing.” He raises his eyebrows. “You strip, I strip?”
A breathy noise slips out of me before I can stop it.
He pulls the fabric over his head. I force my eyes away from his because looking into his eyes feels so intimate right now.
If I thought the glimpses I’d caught of his bare chest before were distracting, seeing all of it at once is mesmerizing.
I know I technically saw him shirtless from the front in the kitchen, but then I had my eyes closed most of the time and was much more interested in how he felt than what his tattoos looked like. Now I want to take in every detail.
“I told you this guy was the first one I did.” He holds up his palm to display the stick figure on his pinky knuckle, and I risk a glance back at him. “After that came the bones, and these nails.”
His pec muscle jumps, bringing my eyes to three iron nails tattooed there, shaded so realistically that they look like they’re piercing his skin—like I could reach out and pull them free.
“I was going through a 3D phase,” he continues. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life feeling like I had nails driven into my chest every time I thought about what happened, so I guess this was an expression of that.”
I nod, even though imagining him in that much pain makes my heart hurt. “It’s impressive you could do them upside-down.”